Sales Strategy Q&A

Would love to hear your thoughts @Peter Khalil @Peter Khalil 

In order to expand your customer-base you need to give people a reason why they would want to potentially go out of their way to get to you instead of going to a cafe closer to home. As the others have mentioned, it’s difficult to give suggestions without knowing what you’ve already tried, but here are some ideas that will (hopefully) help you get more foot traffic in your cafe:

1. Corporate and event catering - catering not only opens up another way of doing business, but it can expose your cafe to a wider audience who may bear you in mind for future catering events 

2. Do weekly specials - doing a delicious weekly gets people excited and offers value-for-money

3. Host events - run comedy nights, open-mic, film nights, cork n’ canvas, etc

4. Try to nail one thing on your menu - we all have that one favourite dish that we would travel far and wide to get! Pick and master a household or local/national favourite that will get people talking 

5. Loyalty cards - loyalty cards are a great way to keep people coming back

6. Consider a suburb special coupon - give people in the nearby suburbs an exclusive discount
   
   Good luck :) 

Afterpay and ZipPay have become popular in recent years and most established retailers are already set-up or considering setting up the 'buy now pay later' service for their businesses. There is a cost to implementing these models for your business. They do have to make a profit afterall.  Afterpay is the more expensive and payments are 4 equal payments fortnightly ($2000 / 4 or $200 / 4).  ZipPay allows the user to set their own repayments (for example $150 a month regardless whether it was a $1500 or $150 purchase).

Interestingly neither of these providers accept AMEX - only Visa and Mastercard at this stage.  There are other players in the market that offer the buy now pay later service so it's important to do your research.  And ultimately, the one you choose has to fit into your business model. 

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Social media! You can do so much that's free, just your time to get out there and get involved. Find Facebook (and LinkedIn) groups that your ideal customer would be part of and get active in there. Not promoting unless you're invited to do so, but sharing and connecting with the audience. 

Business development and marketing are related, but different concepts. They operate at different levels.
 
I think of the two areas essentially as ‘business-related’ and ‘customer-related’ respectively. It’s not perfect, but it’s one way of breaking down the concepts. 
 
For example, ‘business-related’ (or business development) activities are about growing your business at its operational level. It might involve salespeople visiting prospects or business-to-business relationships. 
 
Customer-related (or marketing) activities correspond with reaching your brand’s customers. These include things like ads, content development, branding activities, PR, promotions and customer service (among many other activities).  
 
Another way of viewing it is ‘marketing’ involves reaching the intended audience, and ‘business development’ happens after the customer is aware of the offering.
 
As you can see comparing these two terms can be confusing and there’s no real universal rule about how to differentiate between them. Use of the terms can also be contextual, such that they differ depending on the business or industry to which they’re being applied

Rick,

One way to know is by the number of clients you are landing. Are you having any issues getting clients at your current price? If not, your prices may be set too low. This may sound counter-intuitive, but you want clients to question your pricing. This gives you a chance to justify your rates and fees.

The other way to know is by the quality of your clients. Are most of your clients easy to work with or are some of them nothing but headaches? Raising your prices will deter clients that want everything for a small fee. Getting rid of clients will also make you feel better (as you won't always be stressed about them reaching out for changes or revisions at the last minute). Also, if a client doesn't seem like a good fit, turn them down. Start saying "no" and you may actually see your profit margin go up.

I believe there is an avenue to grow your business as an adjunct service in the early days. A site such as ensignbrokers.com.au would be a great place to pin point people selling/buying boats. They are in the market, can look to use your product to upgrade their experience and they are in the right head space.